NONDOMINATION AND THE VALUE OF DEMOCRACY

Christian F. Rostbøll

Draft of chapter to anthology on Freedom and Domination, ed. Cillian McBride and Keith Breen.

28 September 2012

I. Introduction

2

One great contribution of the revival of republicanism is that it brings freedom back into the debate

about the value of democracy. Or if this is too strong a claim, the republican theory of Philip Pettit

and others gives us reason to reconsider the argument for grounding democracy in freedom.1 What I

shall call freedom arguments for democracy have been discredited, because they have been relying

on either an objectionable Aristotelian perfectionism (the idea that political activity is the highest

good) or an untenable Rousseauian equation of the people in their collective capacity and the

people understood severally. This (and more) has led many contemporary political philosophers to

ground democracy in equality rather than in freedom. My point of departure is that the republican

conception of freedom as nondomination contains some valuable insights and resources to

overcome the objections to freedom arguments for democracy, while upholding the focus on

freedom in the explanation of the value of democracy. The current formulation of freedom as

nondomination and of its relationship to democracy, however, is only my point of departure. The

most elaborate and systematic defense of republicanism, that of Philip Pettit, only achieves

overcoming earlier criticisms of freedom arguments for democracy at great costs. Specifically, Pettit

understands the relationship between freedom and democracy as an instrumental relationship in a

way that is open to objections.

1 Nadia Urbinati (2012) has in a recent article shown the anti-democratic aspects of Roman and neo-Roman republicanism. While I agree with Urbinati that neo-Roman republicanism could be more democratic, I think she fails to see that and how republicans such as Phillip Pettit seeks to ground democracy in freedom.

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In this chapter I argue that republicanism should be seen as supplying a strong non-instrumental

justification of democracy, because the latter inherently expresses a relationship of nondomination

among citizens. In other words, the value of democracy is not merely that it instrumentally (or

causally) promotes nondomination but also that it, non-instrumentally, is part of democracy to

relate citizens to one another in a way where no one is in a position to dominate another. The latter

is not an external product of democratic decision making but is internal to it; it is part of the

democratic way of relating to others. The revised republican freedom argument for democracy that I

advance is shown to have certain advantages compared to the equality argument for democracy of

the sort found in the work of, e.g., Thomas Christiano. In particular, I argue that the freedom

argument for democracy can better explain the importance of democratic procedures than can the

equality argument, thus responding to a powerful objection to non-instrumental justifications of

democracy suggested by David Estlund. My argument, however, requires that we go beyond Pettit’s

justification of democracy, which has a tendency to reduce democracy to “rule for the people” and

downplay the importance of “rule by the people.”

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I proceed as follows. In the second section, I explain the distinction between instrumental and non-

instrumental justifications of democracy and suggest that the contribution of republican theory is to

see this debate in new light by focusing on the value of freedom rather than equality alone. The

third section considers positive freedom arguments for democracy and argues that while the

common objections to positive freedom have some merit, we need to go beyond not only Isaiah’s

Berlin’s two concepts of liberty (as republicans do) but also his excessive hostility to positive

freedom (which neo-Roman republicans do not). The fourth section argues that Philip Pettit’s

republican theory contains some resources for developing a freedom argument for democracy, but

2

that his assertion that democracy has no intrinsic value must be rejected. Thus, we need to go

beyond Pettit’s theory in order to understand the non-instrumental value of democracy for freedom.

In section V, I go beyond Pettit’s republicanism and defend both the non-instrumental value of

democracy and the idea that freedom must include a dimension of collective self-legislation. I show

the advantage of this position over equality arguments for democracy and defend it against some

important objections.

II. Instrumental and Non-Instrumental Justifications of Democracy

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In discussions of the value of democracy and of the justification of democratic authority, political

philosophers often distinguish between the instrumental and the intrinsic value of democratic

decision-making and/or the democratic way of life.2 The instrumental justification of democracy

holds, first, that the form of government that ought to be instituted is the one with the best

consequences, and, second, that democracy is the form of government with the best consequences.3

Thus, on the instrumental view, the value and authority of democracy are derived from the

consequences to which it is believed to be the best (feasible) means. The intrinsic justification of

democracy invokes virtues inherent in democratic decision-making whose value is independent of

their consequences. Thus, on the intrinsic argument the value and authority of democracy lies in

something that is internal to and expressed by democratic decision-making or the democratic way of

life.

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2 On the distinction between instrumental and non-instrumental justification of democracy, see Christiano (2012). As the last part of the sentence in the text indicates, we might see the value of democracy more narrowly in terms of how political decisions are made or more broadly as the value of a democratic culture or way of life of a community (Anderson 2009).3 Richard Arneson (2009: 197) calls this view “democratic instrumentalism” – and defends it.

3

The most prominent, contemporary non-instrumental justification of democracy defends

“democracy as a non-instrumentally just procedure,” because it treats citizen as equals. “A political

procedure may be considered intrinsically just when the rules or practices that constitute it treat

persons in accordance with the requirements of justice” (Griffin 2003: 118). In Thomas Christiano’s

(2008: 96) non-instrumental account, democracy “is a publicly clear way of recognizing and affirming

the equality of citizens.” I shall call this the “equality argument” for the non-instrumental value of

democracy and later contrast it to “freedom arguments” (instrumental and non-instrumental) for

democracy. According to Christiano, the equality argument is a superior alternative to the freedom

argument for the value of democracy. In short, he believes that it is not possible for democracy to

make citizens free or self-governing, but democracy can treat citizens fairly or as equals (Christiano

1996: ch. 1, esp. p. 42). But is the public affirmation of equality of citizens sufficient to explain the

value of democratic procedures as we know them?

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Different arguments have been advanced for the idea that we cannot understand the value of

democracy save by invoking the instrumental belief in its good consequences compared to other

forms of government. I shall focus on David Estlund’s forceful argument that we cannot explain why

citizens should have an equal say in political decision making – the core of democracy in any of its

versions – purely with reference to the intrinsic value of fairness or citizen equality. If all we cared

about were fairness or equal treatment, flipping a coin would do just as well (Estlund 2008: ch. 4).

The best reason to favor the right of citizens to express their views and judgments over and above

coin flipping is that we expect people’s views to be intelligent and contribute to the epistemic quality

of political decisions in a way coin flipping does not (Estlund 2008: 6). In other words, Estlund’s

argument is that we cannot explain the importance and specificity of democratic decision making

procedures without appealing to their instrumental value.4 I believe that any non-instrumental

4 Estlund’s own position, “epistemic proceduralism,” is not merely instrumentalist but includes also intrinsic values of democracy.

4

justification of democracy must meet Estlund’s challenge, and my suggestion is that substituting

freedom for equality as the core non-instrumental value of democracy can help us doing so.

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As we have just seen, both the non-instrumental justification of democracy and the epistemic

critique of it regard equal treatment as the main candidate for explaining the intrinsic value of

democracy. The importance of freedom is either ignored or rejected in this debate. A chief

contribution of republicanism is its potential for bringing freedom back into the debate about the

ground of democracy. My aim is to show that republicanism can contribute to giving new life to the

freedom argument for democracy. On the one hand, the republican grounding of democracy in

freedom as nondomination is less susceptible to the standard objections to freedom arguments for

democracy. On the other hand, the republican freedom argument for democracy can meet the

challenge to the equality argument posed by Estlund. Before we can show this, however, we need to

review the objections to freedom arguments for democracy and to refine the republican freedom

argument for democracy. Above all, we must reconsider the issue of whether freedom is

instrumentally or non-instrumentally related to democracy in republicanism.

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When we see the instrumental/non-instrumental-value-of-democracy debate in relation to freedom,

as republicanism encourages us to do, the first question is whether democracy is instrumental to

freedom or intrinsic to freedom. To say that democracy is instrumental to freedom is to hold that

the value of democracy in relation to freedom is that of a means that furthers a valuable end. In the

instrumental justification, democracy has no value in itself apart from the value it derives from being

a (causal) means to freedom. To say that the relationship between democracy and freedom is an

intrinsic one is to hold that democracy is an inherent part of freedom, and that freedom is not

merely an external consequence of democratic decision making. On the intrinsic argument we also

5

say that the relationship between freedom and democracy is necessary or internal, meaning that we

(in some sense) cannot have one without the other. As is perhaps already clear in these formulations

there are different ways of understanding these connections and hence different ways of

understanding the disagreement between an instrumental and an intrinsic argument regarding the

relationship between freedom and democracy. Here are three different interpretations of the issue:

(1) We can/cannot bring about freedom without democracy (causal connection). (2) We can/cannot

understand or define the concept of freedom without the concept of democracy (conceptual or

definitional connection). (3) Democracy and freedom are/are not based on the same value, they

are/are not normatively co-original (normative connection).

III. Beyond Berlin and Positive Freedom

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Criticisms of freedom arguments for democracy are often framed within a Berlinian dichotomy

between negative and positive freedom, and they often share Isaiah Berlin’s (1969: 130) contention

that “there is no necessary connexion between individual liberty and democratic rule.” In other

words, the rejection of freedom arguments for democracy share two ideas with Berlin, viz. that

democracy is something conceptually and normatively different than individual liberty and that

positive understandings of freedom tend to lead to or even justify oppression. Berlin also suggests

that one can enjoy the same and as much liberty in a non-democratic as in a democratic regime. It is

less clear whether critics of the freedom argument for democracy share this view, but I shall later

suggest that in a sense they must, or at least they fail to entertain the possibility that the liberty

enjoyed in a democracy is of a different kind than the one you can experience in non-democratic

regimes. Now, the republican conception of freedom as nondomination is very much formulated in

opposition to and as an alternative to Berlin’s two concepts of liberty (Pettit 1997: ch. 1; 1999:

164ff). My suggestion is that this revision of Berlin should also enable us to revitalize and strengthen

the freedom argument for democracy.

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11Recall Berlin’s conceptualization of negative and positive liberty, which has been so influential and, I

think, unfruitful for a proper understanding of the relationship between freedom and democracy.

Berlin defines negative freedom as the absence of “deliberate interference of other human beings

within the area in which I could otherwise act” (Berlin 1969: 122). Pettit calls this view “freedom as

non-interference.” It is this understanding of individual liberty that Berlin thinks has no necessary

connection to democracy. In Berlin there is clearly no conceptual relation between negative freedom

and democracy, and even in empirical or causal terms he notes that a liberal-minded despot

sometimes allow more negative freedom than democratic majorities (Berlin 1969: 129). But “on the

whole,” Berlin accepts that democracies may better protect negative freedom than non-democratic

regimes (Berlin 1969: 130). The positive concept of freedom is less clearly defined by Berlin, and

perhaps it involves more than one idea (Miller 1991: 10). At one point Berlin differentiates negative

freedom as a question of “What am I free to do or be?” and positive freedom as a question of “By

whom am I ruled?” (Berlin 1969: 130). Positive freedom is about ruling oneself and connects directly

to democracy as the only form of government in which the ideal is to be ruled by oneself. For Berlin

the desire to be negatively free and the desire to rule oneself “is not a desire for the same thing”

(Berlin 1969: 131). Thus, there is no normative connection between the two ideals in his view either.

Berlin’s view that one can be as negatively free under a despot as in a democracy presupposes that

the freedom enjoyed under the two forms of regime is the same kind of freedom. Such a view was

explicitly formulated by Thomas Hobbes5: “Whether a commonwealth be monarchical, or popular,

the freedom is still the same.”6 It is exactly this view that republicans reject.7 My question is if a

rejection of that view does not us push in the direction of awarding democracy intrinsic value.

12

5 Berlin cites Hobbes as a predecessor in formulating a negative conception of liberty (Berlin 1969: 123, n2).6 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), ch. XXI, p. 143.7 The quoted passage from Hobbes is discussed in Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 38ff; and Quentin Skinner, Liberty Before Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 85ff.

7

While contemporary republicanism criticizes Berlin’s two concepts of liberty for concealing “from

view the philosophical validity and historical reality of a third, radically different understanding of

freedom” (Pettit 1997: 19) and finds fault with Berlin’s understanding of the relation between

freedom and democracy (Pettit 1999), it shares his fear of positive conceptions of freedom (Urbinati

2012: 610). It was Quentin Skinner who first argued that republican thinkers in the neo-Roman

tradition did not, as many commentators had thought, favor a positive conception of freedom.

Republicans, Skinners writes, “work with a purely negative view of liberty.”8 Following in the

footsteps of Skinner’s historical studies, Pettit (1997: 27ff) insists that his interpretation of

republican freedom, freedom as nondomination, is a negative conception of freedom.9 What

distinguishes republicans from Berlin is not the abhorrence of positive conceptions of freedom, but

the idea that what one must be free from is not interference but rather domination. In focusing on

domination, Pettit wants to make two main points against the notion of freedom as non-

interference. He claims, first, that not all interference compromises freedom; and secondly, that not

only interference compromises freedom. The first point is meant to show that there are qualitative

differences between forms of interference. Specifically, Pettit wants to show that only arbitrary

interference compromises freedom. The latter point is important for the alternative understanding

of the relationship between freedom and democracy that one finds in republicanism compared to

Berlin. But before we get to that, I consider two objections to positive conceptions of freedom,

conceptions that are also the basis of intrinsic freedom arguments for democracy.

13

One classical freedom argument for democracy is the Rousseauian idea that in a democracy people

are free because they are governed by themselves, the people.10 According to Pettit, the idea that

8 Quentin Skinner “The Paradoxes of Political Liberty,” in Liberty, ed. D. Miller (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 183-205, at 202.9 On the differences between Skinner’s and Pettit’s views on republican freedom, as Pettit sees them, see Pettit 2002.10 Rousseau writes, “[I]n giving himself to all, each person gives himself to no one” [Rousseau SC I.6, 1987: 148].

8

when “the people” rule, “people” cannot be dominated rests on a “fallacy of equivocation.” The

trouble is that “the people” who rules refers to a collectivity, while “people” who are ruled refer to

individuals taken severally or distributively. And “it is quite possible that the people, understood

collectively, should dominate the people, understood severally” (Pettit 1999: 174). Since the people

understood collectively in most instances actually denote the majority, we have here also the

background for the classical fear of the tyranny of the majority. Now, there is nothing particular

republican about this objection to the Rousseauian freedom argument for democracy, we find it in a

very similar formulation also in John Stuart Mill: “The ‘people’ who exercise the power are not

always the same people as those over whom power is exercised; and the ‘self-government’ is not

the government of each by himself, but of each by all the rest” (Mill 1989: 7f). Mill goes on to talk

about the tyranny of “society collectively, over the separate individuals who compose it” (Mill 1989:

8). While this is an important challenge to the freedom argument for democracy, we should note

that it follows in the footsteps of liberal criticisms of positive freedom and offers no specifically

republican argument.

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There is a second way in which the relationship between freedom and democracy may be said to be

intrinsic and which also relies on (what might be called) a positive conception of freedom. The idea is

that democracy (and only democracy) provides all citizens with the possibility of taking part in a

specific form of activity, political action, which in itself is the only true exercise of freedom. This idea

differs from the Rousseauian argument, because the value of political action and the freedom

involved in it might not be seen as a matter of collective self-determination, but might lie in the

praxis of acting among other free citizens in itself. Often this view is attributed to Hannah Arendt11

and other neo-Athenian and neo-Aristotelian theorists (Sandel, Pocock). Pettit distances his own

republicanism from this neo-Athenian freedom argument, insisting that “while the republican

11 See in particular HC, ch. 5 and WF.

9

tradition finds value and importance in democratic participation, it does not treat it as a bed rock

value. Democratic participation may be essential to the republic, but that is because it is necessary

for promoting the enjoyment of freedom as non-domination, not because of its independent

attractions” (Pettit 1997: 8). In other words, Pettit affords political participation only instrumental

and not intrinsic value in relation to freedom. Part of his reason is to show that “the [republican]

ideal is compatible with modern pluralistic forms of society” (Pettit 1997: 8). Like liberalism, then, he

rejects conceptions of freedom that in a perfectionist way favors one conception of the good life

over others (Kymlicka 2002: 294ff).

15

I said that the Berlinian dichotomy between negative freedom and positive freedom is unfruitful for

understanding the relationship between freedom and democracy, we now see why. On the one

hand, the conceptualization of freedom as noninterference leads to the counter-intuitive view that

we cannot explain the value of democracy in relation to personal freedom at all. On the other hand,

while Berlin understands positive freedom in a way that connects to democracy, indeed is identical

to democracy in some formulations, he understands positive freedom (and democracy) in a way that

is meant to close off further explorations. Of course, some might be persuaded that there is nothing

more to say about freedom and democracy than that they are not internally related (negative

freedom) or they are related in an objectionable way (positive freedom). My suggestion is that this is

too quick, and that before we can conclude thus we must consider the republican idea that there is a

third concept of freedom. While freedom as nondomination is a negative conception, it is held to be

a freedom that can be enjoyed only in a free state or a state with self-government [Skinner 1998:

23ff]. The contention that freedom as nondomination can be enjoyed only in a state with self-

government points to that the relationship between freedom and democracy must be seen, in

republicanism, as necessary and not merely contingent.

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IV. Pettit and Beyond

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Pettit’s republicanism is of interest for our inquiry for two reasons. First, it supplies new reasons for

grounding democracy in freedom rather than equality alone.12 Second, the conceptualization of

freedom as nondomination appears to take us beyond some of the shortcomings of the Berlinian

dichotomy between negative and positive freedom, particularly the notion that there is no necessary

connection between individual freedom and democracy. Thus, Pettit’s theory might contain the

resources for developing a fresh freedom argument for democracy. His understanding of the

relationship between freedom and democracy seems also to avoid some of the objections to

Aristotelian and Rousseauian theories. I shall suggest, however, that Pettit cannot sustain the

argument that democracy is a mere means to nondomination. In the final analysis, the relationship

between democracy and freedom has also a non-instrumental dimension. I do not take this as an

objection to the ideal of freedom as nondomination, though it does require that we go beyond

Pettit’s formulation of the ideal and particularly of how he thinks it relates to democracy. Of course,

we will have to consider whether giving democracy non-instrumental value reopens for the

objections to positive freedom arguments for democracy. But before we get so far, let us look more

closely at Pettit’s view of the relationship between freedom and democracy.

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As mentioned, Pettit agrees that democratic participation is important in republicanism but he

insists that this has nothing to do with its “independent attractions” (Pettit 1997: 8). The importance

of democratic control comes, “not from any definitional connection with liberty, but from the fact

that it is a means of furthering liberty” (Pettit 1997: 30). What he says here implies that freedom (as

nondomination) can be defined independently of the concept of democracy and also that the value

of nondomination differs from the value of democracy. So Pettit denies that there is an intrinsic or

12 As we shall see, I don’t think grounding democracy in freedom or equality are exclusive alternatives. But some equality arguments eschew any reference to freedom and Pettit says he grounds democracy in freedom.

11

non-instrumental relationship between freedom and democracy, both definitionally and

normatively. Thus far Pettit seems to present a clear case of “democratic instrumentalism”, i.e., to

defend democratic institutions only insofar as they are the best means of furthering nondemocratic

ends, here nondomination. And thus we might also think Pettit would be in agreement with Berlin’s

conclusion that there is no necessary connection between individual liberty and democracy. But

Pettit argues that this conclusion of Berlin’s shows a shortcoming of the conceptualization of

freedom as non-interference. The latter conception, Pettit writes, “forces us … to say that

democratization is not bound to make government more freedom friendly. On the contrary … it is

bound to be the case that democratization does nothing to relieve the essential enmity that exists

between coercive law and government, on the one hand, and individual freedom on the other”

(Pettit 1999: 170). And, “only the republican conception holds out any hope for sustaining the claim

that democratization can make government freedom-friendly” (Pettit 1999: 163). The relationship

between freedom as nondomination and democracy is somehow closer than the one between

freedom as non-interference and democracy, according to Pettit. But how?

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Remember that while Berlin accepts that democracies, “on the whole”, might be better at protecting

freedom (as non-interference) than non-democracies, he sees this as a contingent matter. Pettit, in

opposition to Berlin, argues that democratized states represent a lesser assault on republican

freedom than nondemocratic ones, and not just contingently but “just in virtue of being

democratized” (Pettit 1999, p. 163). His aim is to show that coercive law and government is not

necessarily the enemy of liberty, and that democratization is what is required for law and

government not to be dominating or hostile to freedom. What is noteworthy in Pettit’s

republicanism is the attempt to show such a relationship between freedom and democracy without

appealing to the intrinsic value of democratic participation or to the idea that a law given by the

people cannot dominate the people. Pettit’s position, then, seems to be that the relationship

12

between democracy and freedom is instrumental but nonetheless necessary. My question is

whether it is possible to sustain the claim that there is a necessary relationship between freedom

and democracy, while upholding that democracy is an external means to freedom as nondomination

in the way Pettit does.

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Consider why Pettit believes that only the republican conception of freedom can sustain the claim

that democratic states, in virtue of being democratic, are more freedom friendly. Defining freedom

not as absence of interference but rather as nondomination means, according to Pettit, not only that

there can be domination without interference (as in the case of the non-interfering master), but also

that there can be interference without domination. The decisive question in the latter case is

whether the interference is arbitrary or not. What democratic governments (of the right kind) do,

according to Pettit, is to substitute one form of interference with a completely different kind. And,

“interference occurs without the loss of liberty when the interference is not arbitrary and does not

represent a form of domination” (Pettit, 1997, p. 35). Interference is non-arbitrary when it is

“designed to track people’s interests according to their ideas” (Pettit, 1997, p. 149), or more

precisely, “to the extent that it is forced to track people’s common avowable interests” (Pettit 2001,

p. 139; cf. 1999, p. 176). Thus, democracy is connected to freedom, in Pettit’s view, because it is a

form of government that is designed and forced to track people’s interests as they see them and to

interfere exclusively on that basis. It is no accident that democracies (of a certain kind) and not other

forms of government promote freedom as non-domination; they do so because they alone are

designed to do so. It is not clear if we should characterize the relationship between freedom and

democracy suggested here as internal and necessary. One question is whether one, in principle,

could design other forms of government than democracy to track common avowable interest, or

whether a government that is designed to track common avowable interests, by definition, is a

democracy. If the latter is the case, the relationship between freedom and democracy is internal and

13

necessary. This conclusion would strengthen Pettit’s argument that there is a more robust

relationship between freedom and democracy in republicanism than in the tradition of Hobbes and

Berlin, but it also seems to contradict his point that there is no definitional connection between

democracy and freedom as nondomination. I return to the latter point below.

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Related to the question of whether or not we should characterize Pettit as proposing a necessary

relationship between freedom and democracy is a possible ambiguity in the importance of the idea

that democracies are designed to track common interest. One possibility is to read it as an output

based justification of democracy, which says that democratic laws do not compromise freedom

because they as a matter of fact track people’s common avowable interests. In a way this is the most

natural reading in light of the clear instrumentalist formulations quoted earlier. But this justification

implies that democracy is freedom-friendly if only if its outputs infallibly track and track only

common avowable interests and is thus susceptible to the objection that democracies cannot

provide an infallible method for making non-arbitrary decisions (Bellamy, 2008, pp. 164ff). The

second reading focuses on the fact that Pettit says that democracies are designed to track people’s

interests. If what makes democracy valuable is that it is designed to treat everyone’s interests

equally, its value comes not from the fact that democratic decisions actually do so, but rather from

the equal status afforded everyone in the democratic process. This reading tends toward giving

democracy intrinsic or non-instrumental value. Pettit has excluded himself from endorsing this view

because of his rejection of the notion that democracy can be intrinsically justified. It seems to me

that Pettit fails to see that there are other intrinsic justifications of democracy than Aristotelian and

Rousseauian ones, and that his own theory of freedom and democracy might itself contain the

theoretical resources for formulating such a justification. At least the latter is the possibility I find

worth exploring.

14

21

I mentioned earlier that the relationship between freedom and democracy can be described as

definitional when we cannot define one without reference to the other. We saw also that Pettit

denies that there is any definitional connection between freedom and democracy. But there is a

sense in which Pettit’s definition of nondomination is incomplete without a description of the

institutions of the democratic state. To be nondominated is to have security that one be subject to

only non-arbitrary interference, but to understand what non-arbitrary decisions are we need the

idea of interference that tracks common avowable interests, and to understand that idea we need to

understand what democratic control means and entails. We cannot see these relations merely in

instrumental or causal terms, for that would require that the meaning of freedom as nondomination

was in place independently of an account of democratic institutions. But on Pettit’s own account we

do not know what non-arbitrariness means, and thus what freedom requires, before we have an

account of common avowable interests and democratic institutions (cf. Christman 1998: 205;

Rostbøll 2008: 60). Thus, there is a definitional connection between freedom as nondomination and

democratic control.13 If this is correct, it must also be the case that the freedom we can enjoy in a

democracy is not the same freedom as the freedom we can enjoy in non-democracies. And if only a

democratic government (of the right kind) can secure nondomination, then the relationship between

democracy and freedom is necessary in republicanism. Is it also intrinsic?

22

At several points Pettit defends republicanism against the charge that it confuses security and

freedom, means and end (Pettit 1997: 46, 73f). He does so by noting, first, that republicans are

concerned about security not against interference as such but against interference on an arbitrary

basis, and second, that only security of a certain sort is compatible with republican freedom. It is the

13 One might say that the implicit definitional connection in Pettit’s theory is not between freedom and democratic control, but rather between freedom and the institutions of the constitutional democratic state, or between freedom and what he calls contestatory democracy. But that shows only that Pettit advances a specific view of democracy and not that he can see democracy as merely instrumental to freedom.

15

second point that is relevant for our discussion. According to Pettit (1997: 73f), “Trying to secure the

absence of arbitrary interference … is not trying to promote it by no matter what means.”

Particularly, he excludes security that is achieved by strategic means of deference, indulgence, and

anticipation. As he puts it, nondomination “presents a picture of a free life in which the need for

strategy is minimized” (Pettit 1997: 87). This requires political institutions in which everyone has

equal social standing, and, thus, democracy seems to be necessary for such a free life. Isn’t it exactly

one of the intrinsic values of democracy (of a certain kind) that it is inherently one in which the need

for strategic deference is minimized and where citizens “do not have to bow and scrape” (Pettit

1997: 87)? My point is that Pettit’s theory, despite his intentions, contains valuable insights into

what are the intrinsic values of democracy. The picture of the free life depicted by the ideal of

nondomination is not so much a consequence of democracy as it is expressed in the relations that

democracy creates among citizens. Moreover, it is an important insight in republicanism that these

relations are not merely expressions of recognition of equality but also of freedom.

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I have argued that Pettit cannot sustain a purely instrumental justification of democracy and that the

attempt to do so conceals the theoretical resources which the ideal of nondomination actually

contains for understanding the intrinsic value of democracy. I have also suggested that

republicanism potentially can give new life to the notion that democracy must be grounded in

freedom rather than equality only. In order to advance this suggestion and in order to differentiate

the republican argument for democracy from equality arguments, we must, however, reconsider the

hostility to positive freedom in neo-Roman republicanism. In other words, we should ask, if the

rejection of the importance of self-legislation is “in the end counterproductive to [republicanism’s]

own very valuable goal of achieving and securing individual liberty as non-domination” (Urbinati

2012: 608).

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V. A Place for Collective Self-Legislation?

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The question I want to raise, then, is if the impetus to avoid anything resembling a Rousseauian idea

of collective self-legislation in the understanding of freedom and democracy could be an inhibition

for the republican attempt to ground democracy in freedom and achieving nondomination. In Pettit,

this impetus is a product both of a principled fear of the tyranny of the majority and a realist

skepticism towards the possibility of people actually ruling themselves.14 But Pettit also believes that

it is not required for freedom that one be the author of the law to which one is subject. In order for

interference to be nondominating, he suggests, it must have the quality of tracking common

interests, while the issue of self-imposition plays no role. Pettit, one might say, is more concerned

with government for the people than government by the people. Democracy, in his view, does not

require that the people be in active but only in passive control, which means their “preferences, if

not [their] choices, are privileged.”15 The mechanisms of democratic control that he favors “ensure

not that ordinary people dictate what policies will be selected and applied but that the policies

selected and applied will conform to people’s common, recognizable interests.”16 Pettit’s model of

democracy – contestatory democracy – pushes us back towards the idea that democracy has only

instrumental value. The question is, however, whether if we take self-legislation out of the equation,

won’t we still have masters?

25

14 John McCormick criticizes this line in Pettit: “Given the secure position of the wealthy in liberal democratic regimes … Pettit’s anxiety about a tyranny of the majority – or at least over what is relevant here, the majority against the rich – seems less appropriate than the opposite anxiety: that politics conducted primarily through elections decisively favors the autonomous elites.” McCormick, “Machiavelli Against Republicanism: On the Cambridge School’s ‘Guicciardinian Moments,’” Political Theory 31 (2003): 615-643, at 635. It is anxiety over the tyranny of the majority that makes Pettit accentuate contestation over participation, as McCormick notes (634).15 Philip Pettit, “Democracy, Electoral and Contestatory,” in Designing Democratic Institutions, ed. I. Shapiro and S. Macedo, Nomos XLII (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 105-44, at 139.16 Pettit, “Democracy, Electoral and Contestatory,” 140.

17

When we look not at the conception of freedom as nondomination but rather at Pettit’s model of

democracy, we get a picture of republicanism that is concerned more with the quality of

interference (outcomes), while it ignores the source of interference (inputs). But as I mentioned

earlier, the focus on outcomes is susceptible to the objection that democracy cannot provide an

infallible method for making non-arbitrary decisions. The shortcoming of disregarding the source of

interference becomes particularly apparent, when we note the fallibility of democratic procedures.

We can better accept bad decisions, I think, when we see them as a product of our own choices. It is

part of being free that one sometimes makes mistakes and bad decisions. If we focus on the quality

of decisions only in terms of how well they track common interests this essential aspect of freedom

falls out of view. Of course, Pettit and others will reply that it is not part of freedom that others make

mistakes that hurt my interests and that that is the consequence of seeing the internal connection

between democracy and freedom in terms of collective self-determination. This is a challenge that

has to be met, but I don’t think it entirely invalidates the idea that freedom is also about being the

source of the laws to which one is subject. What we need is a theory of freedom and democracy that

incorporates both non-arbitrariness and self-legislation. My suggestion is that a proper

understanding of nondomination presupposes a commitment to self-legislation, even if Pettit’s

model of democracy excludes it.

26

If we should accept a little worse outcomes for the sake of upholding a procedure with great non-

instrumental value, this is because both inherent features (non-instrumental value) and

consequences (epistemic value) of democratic procedures should be given normative weight. I think

it is a great failure of democratic instrumentalism not to see the former, and that this point is

particularly clear if the non-instrumental value in question is freedom rather than equality. To be

sure, the equality argument can show the importance of everyone being recognized as equals, which

is a great non-instrumental value of democratic procedures, but the freedom argument has the

18

added advantage that the value of being free can explain the right to sometimes make bad

decisions. A defender of the equality argument might reply that her argument implies that citizens

must be equally involved in making political decisions and that this equal involvement is what

matters. But this is really a freedom argument, because it holds that what justifies the result is that

citizens were equally part of a process of self-legislation that produced it. The value of public

recognition of equality is unclear if there is no connection between it and being equal participants in

self-legislation. Christiano (1996; 18) argues that the freedom argument is incomplete without a

principle of equality, which is true. But the equality argument is also incomplete without a principle

of freedom. Without the reference to freedom, the equality argument is mired in the problem of not

being able to explain the specificity of democratic procedures.17 The notion of freedom as

nondomination can contribute to an understanding of why equality matters and what kind of

equality matters, but it cannot discard the ideal of collective self-legislation without also loosing the

ability to explain the right to make mistakes or to make decisions in the absence of knowledge of

what is right. Thus, to go beyond the shortcomings of the equality argument for democracy, we need

a notion of nondomination and democracy that somehow includes the ideal of collective self-

legislation.

27

In the notion of freedom and nondomination we can find resources to overcome some of the

objections to freedom arguments for democracy, which are often implicitly based on the notion of

freedom as noninterference. Christiano has, e.g., objected to the freedom argument for democracy

in the following terms: “Democracy is a system of decisionmaking where each is dependent on the

assent or actions of many others to secure what they want” (Christiano 1996: 25, emphasis added).

This dependence on the assent of others is “a paradigmatic case of unfreedom” (Christiano 1996:

24). This objection relies on an ideal of a natural freedom that is best achieved “on the heath”.

17 Cf. Estlund’s challenge mentioned earlier and further discussion below.

19

Nondomination, by contrast, refers to a “status” that can be achieved only “among other people,

none of whom dominates you … It is a social ideal whose realization presupposes the presence of a

number of mutually interactive agents” (Pettit 1997: 66). Christiano, moreover, speaks as if it is

democracy that makes us dependent, but this gets the issue backwards. Dependence is inevitable in

political society, the aim is to make it legitimate, as Rousseau might put it.18 Republicans have

traditionally understood that when judging the value of democracy, we should take outset in the fact

of mutual dependence as well as in the fact that political power exists and is necessary. It is not

democracy that makes us dependent on others; democracy is a way of making this dependence

legitimate and more compatible with freedom. The notion of freedom of nondomination can help us

understand that interdependence is not necessarily a threat to freedom in a way that freedom as

noninterference cannot. To be nondominated requires neither independence from others nor that

one assents to every law one is subject to. It requires, rather, a certain standing among those with

whom one is interdependent.

28

It is an often repeated criticism of the idea that freedom and democratic participation are

intrinsically related that it implies that “the liberty involved in participating in ruling the society is

more important than the individual liberty involved in more private pursuits” (Christiano 1996: 19). It

is objected that proponents of the freedom argument cannot explain this priority of political

freedom over private freedom and that in fact “most people tend to find more fulfillment in the

private sphere. They would rather cultivate their garden than the public good” (Bellamy 2008: 162).

On this basis, it may be asked why a little political freedom cannot be traded off for a lot of private

freedom to increase overall freedom (Christiano 1996: 19, 26). This objection seems to take for

granted the perspective of someone who already enjoys both private and public freedom, and it is

true that many of us who are so lucky to have both kinds of freedom give greater importance to

18 “If the human essence is social, then men and women have to choose not between independence or dependence but between citizenship or slavery.” (Barber 1994: 216).

20

private than to political freedom. The question is if it makes sense outside this perspective to speak

of private and political freedom as each having a given meaning and value that can constitute a

trade-off problem. The objection implies that there are two different kinds of freedom, private and

political, each making it possible to partake in different kinds of activities, cultivating one’s garden vs.

cultivating the public good, and that the value of each is independent of whether one enjoys the

other. The objection presupposes the notion of freedom as noninterference and it fails to note that

what makes political freedom special is not necessarily that it is a higher good that can be weighted

against the good of private freedom. My suggestion is that private freedom does not have the same

meaning and value without political freedom, and that political freedom or democracy is not merely

about making arbitrary interference “inaccessible” (Pettit 1997: 74), but also about making subjects

authors. Political freedom has a special importance because it also changes the relation in which the

privately free individual stands to her co-citizens. Without political freedom, private freedom will be

something that will be given to us by others, not something we have given ourselves. If we have only

private freedom, while others rule us (even if our private freedoms are legally protected by rights),

we will still stand in a subordinate relationship to others, we will still have masters. The notion of

freedom as nondomination includes the idea that it is not the same freedom we enjoy with and

without political freedom. What I suggest is that to fully explain this, republicans should not discard

that freedom is also about collective self-legislation.

29

There are strong reasons for avoiding the argument for the intrinsic relationship between democracy

and freedom, in so far as it relies on a conception of the good life that all citizens do not share and

are not unreasonable to reject. In other words, the freedom argument for democracy should not

turn on a sectarian conception of the good nor on what Rawls calls a comprehensive doctrine. This is

so not only because it would violate citizens’ negative freedom to determine their own conception

of the good but also because it would contravene the democratic ideal of self-rule. As Corey

21

Brettschneider (2007: 19) puts it, “subordinating democratic institutions to one particular

comprehensive view would impose external rule on citizens who, reasonably, did not share that

view.” So the ideal of collective self-legislation does not by itself imply an untenable sectarianism but

rather condemns it. Moreover, the argument of the proceeding paragraph does not rely on that

political freedom is a good that should be promoted or maximized (which would involve

sectarianism or perfectionism), but rather on a specific ideal about how citizens ought to relate to

one another. We are concerned here with principles regulating social relations among people rather

than with the content of the lives these people should live (Rostbøll 2011: 345f). My proposal is that

relations of nondomination require that no one is another’s master and that this presupposes the

idea of collective self-legislation in some form.

30

We can now revisit the challenge to intrinsic justifications of democracy suggested by Estlund. As

mentioned in section II [§7], Estlund objects to intrinsic accounts that they are insufficient for

explaining the value of democracy, because values of fairness and equality are satisfied just as well

by a coin flip as by what we commonly regard as democratic procedures. The response that we are

now in the position to make is that this objection fails if freedom or self-government (rather than

equality or fairness) is the intrinsic value that democracy is justified as expressing. While flipping a

coin is fair and respects the equal status of citizens, it does not make us free. Flipping a coin neither

makes political power nondominating in the sense of having the quality of tracking common

interests19 nor in the sense of making the people rulers, at least not in any active sense of that word.

Indeed, the idea of drawing lots fits better to democracy when it is justified with reference to

equality than to freedom.20 Thus, the freedom argument for the intrinsic value of democracy

19 One might say that being subject to decisions made on the basis of coin flipping frees A from being subject to the arbitrary will of B, but it does not secure that decisions track common avowable interests. This shows that nondomination is secured not merely by making citizens equal but requires something more. 20 [In ancient Athens they used lots rather than elections for selecting some officials. What does that say about their view of freedom and equality? See Hansen, Manin 1997, Urbinati 2012]

22

explains better the importance of democratic procedures in which everyone has a say than does the

equality or fairness argument. This is an important finding because it, first, shows an advantage of

the freedom argument over the equality argument and, second, gives further credence to the

justification of democracy as intrinsically valuable.

31

To this argument, Estlund might reply that the shortcoming of intrinsic arguments for democracy,

including freedom arguments, is that they fail to understand the necessity of invoking procedure-

independent standards. Indeed, the freedom argument could be seen as particularly hostile to

procedure-independent standards, because for citizens to be free entails not being bound by

anything but their own political decisions and the preconditions for democratic decision-making [cf

Cohen 1997: 74]. Estlund argues that no justification of democracy can be based on procedural or

non-instrumental values alone but must appeal also to “nonprocedural values” and “procedure-

independent standards.” When we speak of procedure-independent standards in democratic theory,

we refer to standards that are not derived from or produced by the democratic procedure itself. We

do not mean standards that are independent of any conceivable procedure. Estlund’s point is that

absent epistemic reasons, we have no grounds for favoring democratic procedures over other fair

procedures. When democrats want political procedures to allow everyone to express their interests

and opinions, this must be because they believe this has a tendency to improve the quality of the

decisions. Estlund assumes that if he can show that procedural theories rely on procedure-

independent standards, he has also shown that they depend on nondemocratic epistemic standards.

He argues that the value of democratic procedures “cannot be explained without brining in

procedure-independent standards for outcomes” (Estlund 2008: 82). This argument seems to ignore

that procedure-independent standards need not be nondemocratic epistemic standards but can also

be democratic standards (Brettschneider 2007: 17f). We must distinguish between epistemic

procedure-independent standards in light of which outcomes can be assessed in terms of their

23

correctness or rightness and democratic procedure-independent standards that assess democratic

procedures in terms of how well they express intrinsic values of freedom, equality, and self-

legislation that are not themselves products of actual democratic procedures.21 This means also that

intrinsic arguments for democracy do not necessarily depend on a commitment to pure

proceduralism (Griffin 2003: 118).22

32

It is sometimes objected to non-instrumental justifications of democracy that the inherent value of

democratic decision making is conditional on its instrumental virtues. Jon Elster (1997, pp. 19ff), for

example, has argued that the value of political participation is a mere by-product of its instrumental

purpose. If we didn’t believe we sometimes could achieve our aims in democratic decision making or

if we didn’t believe democracy had desirable outcomes, the inherent values would not materialize.

Granting this point, it is important to note that this does not mean that the non-instrumental value

of democracy has no weight of its own or that its value is derived from the consequences. Moreover,

as Elizabeth Anderson (2009, p. 225) has pointed out:

The proper test of the noninstrumental goodness of an activity is not whether we’d prefer to do

it, even if it didn’t result in desirable consequences. It is rather whether we’d still prefer to

engage in it, even if the same consequences could be brought about by other (passive) means.

Thus, accepting that the non-instrumental value of democracy is conditional upon its consequences

does not mean that we should judge which form of government is the best only in terms of its

consequences. Even if one set of institutions produce desirable outcomes, we might prefer another

set of institutions that produce the same outcomes because of the latter’s inherent features. And,

21 [While Brettschneider speaks of assessing outcomes in light of whether outcomes promote democratic values, I speak of assessing procedures in light of standards that are not themselves products of actual democratic procedures.]22 For a definition of pure proceduralism, see Rawls 1999: 74.

24

we might even accept somewhat worse outcomes from a set of institutions whose inherent features

we find very attractive. If both inherent features and outcomes have normative weight, neither a

standard based on the first or the second can determine which institutions are best.

33

Until now I have used the terms intrinsic and non-instrumental more or less interchangeably, as is

common in the literature on the value of democracy, but this might be misleading. To say that the

value of democracy is “intrinsic” has connotations of unconditionality that someone who defends

democracy because of virtues inherent in democratic procedures need not be committed to, as is

clear from the argument in the previous paragraph. We must, therefore, note “the two distinctions

in goodness” suggested by Christine Korsgaard. According to Korsgaard, we must distinguish

between valuing something as an end and regarding something as having intrinsic value. It is not the

same to value something for its own sake (to value it as an end), and to regard something as having

its goodness in itself (intrinsic value). The first concerns the way we value a thing, the second

concerns the source of the value or goodness.23 Korsgaard’s important insight for our purposes is

that not all non-instrumental values or ends are unconditionally good, that is, good under any and all

conditions. I believe that most, or at least, the strongest so-called intrinsic arguments for democracy

defend democracy as an end rather than the source of value. At least what I defend is that the way

we value democracy is not merely as a means but also for its own sake, as an end. For this reason I

propose we speak of the non-instrumental rather than the intrinsic value of democracy. This opens

up the possibility that the non-instrumental value of democracy need not be seen separately from or

as independent of its consequences. When we value something as an end or regard democracy as

non-instrumentally valuable, this need not mean that this value is not conditional on its instrumental

value. All that we need to say is that the non-instrumental value of democracy is not derived from

the consequences.

23 Korsgaard 1996, pp. 250, 257.

25

VI. Conclusion

34

This chapter has argued for four main ideas: First, contemporary republicanism and its notion of

freedom as nondomination contain important theoretical resources for grounding democracy in

freedom. But, second, to further develop this possibility we must reject the republican hostility to

intrinsic arguments for democracy and show that the relationship between freedom and democracy

is non-instrumental. Third, the non-instrumental justification of democracy can be shown to meet

objections regarding perfectionism and the need for procedure-independent standards. Finally, the

proposed freedom argument for democracy better explains the importance of democracy than do

the now more prominent equality arguments.

References

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